Reaching Out
by JbearInChief
Summary: Cheesy title  sorry . Kat and Carter are witnessing the collapse of Reach, and possibly of Humanity as a whole. When you're running on borrowed time, is there any room to reach out to each other and admit to the truth? Kat x Carter Rated T for now.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey Everyone! JBearInChief here! Usually I do Half-life stories, but have, as of late, been OBSESSED with Halo: Reach. The story is amazing and the characters are equally awesome, so I decided to write a new piece based of something I felt was heavily hinted at in the Halo: Reach story- the bond and deep feelings shared between Kat and Carter. This is just a sample of the entire story I'm working on, for your viewing pleasure. Please keep in mind that this assumed a basic knowledge of the Halo Universe and/or the Halo: Reach story, but even if you're not familiar with the Halo Series, it might still be fairly understandable. Please read and review, and let me know if I should continue this story. Thanks! **

Dr. Halsey was a complicated woman. At times she was sweet, caring and, above all, remorseful. Other times she was snide, harsh and icy. Today she was the latter. She was chiding the team for their previous engagement of the zealots.

"I gave the order not to pursue, our primary objective was to get the station's relay back online." Carter explained.

"Your primary objective?" Halsey mocked, "Commander, are you a PUPPET or are you a Spartan?"

The entire noble team was taken aback, Kat especially. She gave Halsey a piercing glare. Halsey seemed to either not notice or ignored it.

"Ma'am?" Carter said through slightly gritted teeth. He didn't like having his character questioned, but it wasn't something to make a scene about. Instead he would let her explain.

"There are many in ONI, myself included, who believe the Covenant dispatch Elite Advanced Teams to hunt down artifacts of value to their religion. Survivor accounts suggest such teams are small, nimble and almost always zealot class. No doubt, they came to the station for the abundance of ONI excavation data stored there. And YOU let them get away…"

"Data retrieval was not a command directive. Even had we know? We had other, more urgent matters to attend do," Carter defended.

"Like warning the PLANET," Kat shot back.

Halsey finally took notice of Kat's sharp glare, and shot one right back as she stepped in front of Kat now.

"Professor Sorvad's final entry in his field notes made reference to a 'latchkey' discovery. Latchkey. Not a word he would use lightly. So let's hope that the data module your Lutennant Commander STOLE…. Contains it."

"Kat?" Carter warned.

Kat gave a very faint and almost undetectable roll of her eyes before switching her helmet into her left arm and dug through her armor pockets with her right. She stepped forward as Dr. Halsey slid the container forward, opening it on Kat's end.

"Before you ask," Halsey said, "I was alerted the moment you attempted to access its contents, as I am with any unauthorized tap."

Kat dropped the module into the container almost flippantly, as if she were telling Halsey to stick it somewhere the sun didn't shine.

"That data is classified Tier 1," Halsey sneered, "I could send you to the brig for interfering with my work."

Kat inhaled and exhaled sharply, on the precipice of exploding. However, she thought better of it and instead, looked down at her feet, defeated, as she stepped back.

Carter had enough. He didn't know why, but his blood boiled to the point where it took complete control over his brain, and he finally decided to say something.

"Maybe you'd like to join her!" Carter snapped to Dr. Halsey.

"I'm sorry?" Halsey scoffed, clearly surprised and agitated at such defiance.

"We're currently under emergency planetary objective- Winter Contingency," Carter said, regaining his composure as to sound less emotional and more official, while still slamming Halsey down, "I'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with a Spartan deployment?"

"Are you THREATENING me, Commander?" Halsey hissed.

"Just making a reading suggestion, MA'AM," Carter said as he turned his back on Halsey and walked out of the room. Kat was close on his heels and the rest of the team followed as well.

Jorge lingered around a little longer than the rest. He looked at Dr. Halsey apologetically, offered a shrug and bid her goodbye with a simple, "Ma'am."

"That…will be all, Jorge," Halsey said, now softening up a bit. She couldn't possibly be short with one of her favorite Spartans. Some of the Spartan III's were defiant at times, but Jorge, a proud Spartan II, was always polite, sweet, and warm.

As they walked out of the base and into their transport helicopters, Kat tried to catch up to Carter.

"Commander?" Kat tried cautiously.

Carter gave her a look, inexplicable in its complexity. It wasn't mean or hostile, but it wasn't exactly warm or reassuring either. Kat decided to leave it alone. She knew that he was uneasy, and she felt bad that it was a result of something involving her.

If it were anyone else who had been upset, Kat would care less. But it was Carter. Kat and Carter were the only two founding members of Noble Team still alive. Kat watched all of the founding members fall, except for Carter. Kat didn't get close to anyone, because from her experience, no one lasted. Except Carter. He took the place of what she denied everyone else, shutting everyone out. Except Carter. He was the only person she was really, really close to and really, really relied on to be there. Sure, she was fiercely loyal and relatively close to her other noble teammates, but no one was at the level of Carter. Maybe that's what a "best friend" was? Kat didn't really know. She didn't have a whole lot of friends in her life, having been taken and put into the UNSC at age 7. She assumed that if she had to assign someone the title of "best friend," it would be him.

Carter slumped back to the falcon that was ready to take them to their base. Kat took the spot across from him. No one said a word. Carter sat ghostly silent and stared down at his helmet. He wondered if he would face a penalty for somewhat cutting loose on Halsey; but he assumed that since it wasn't overtly hostile, he would be okay. Still, it made him uneasy to go against someone in authority, even if she was a civilian. Carter was more respectful than that.

However, as much as he was respectful, he was twice as loyal. He didn't appreciate Halsey's attitude towards Kat. Kat was the person he was closest to, and Halsey's attitude finally boiled to a point where silence was no longer an option to him. He understood that Kat shouldn't have been trying to get into the contents of that data module, but she was curious; even if it was to a somewhat self-destructive degree.

But Carter knew, above all else, that Kat wasn't trying to create trouble or access the information for nefarious reasons. She had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, something that Dr. Halsey of all people should have understood. And if Halsey couldn't understand, then she should have left the reprimanding up to Carter, rather than take the discipline into her own hands. He would have reprimanded her proportionately to the severity of her crime, rather than threaten her and cut her down into submission right in front of the entire squad.

Carter looked up slightly and saw Kat out of the very corner of his eye. She was idly fumbling around with her data reader. Carter smiled a little, facetiously wondering when Kat would, at long last, get that reader fused to her hand.

Kat, however, didn't dare to look up, and just stared down, ashamed. Carter frowned, remorseful that Kat was so downtrodden by today's exchange. The group finally arrived at their outpost and disembarked from their transports. Kat tried to b-line towards one of the tents, but Carter stopped her.

"Kat! Got a minute?" Carter asked.

"Yes, sir." Kat said obediently, not even entertaining the idea of delivering one of their usual friendly jabs. This was NOT the occasion for it.

She walked towards Carter and he led her into a vacant supply tent. She uneasily looked up at him, finally meeting her light green eyes to his shockingly blue eyes.

"Kat," Carter said, "I need your head in the game fully right now- especially for tonight's recon op. Don't let Halsey get you down. She's not great with…"

"It's not HER I'm concerned about," Kat interrupted, "HER opinion is meaningless to me. The only opinion, or anger, that matters is that of my commander…"

"I'm not angry at you, Kat," Carter said before cracking a smile, "I couldn't be even if I tried."

Kat looked up and looked reassured.

"I mean, what were you supposed to do with that module?" Carter continued, grinning "Are you supposed to NOT look at it? What fun would that be?"

Kat chucked. However, her smile suddenly snapped back into a frown, and then a wince.

"What's wrong?" Carter asked, concerned.

Kat didn't say anything. Instead she threw her left arm onto the right side of her collar.

"Kat?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine."

However, as she poked at her collar, Carter knew what was up. Kat had experienced this pain since she lost her arm 3 weeks ago. She was given a very impressive and very useful prosthetic, but she still experienced "phantom" pain- a phenomenon experienced when the nerves in her shoulder would react adversely to the fuses that controlled her prosthetic joints and fingers. It created a pain in her arm, even though there wasn't an arm to feel pain. Instead it was her shoulder nerves telling her brain that her (nonexistent) arm and forearm were in pain.

Kat shoved her left hand into her suit and tried pressing her shoulder, which only made it worse. She let out an annoyed groan.

"Jeez, Kat. Come here," Carter said as he unsealed the chest piece of her suit and pulled it off. He then pulled off the back piece, unzipped the body suit and pulled the body suit down until it rolled past her waist. Kat, now in a tank top, continued to poke and prod at her shoulder, a few inches above where flesh met metal.

"Come. Sit here," Carter said as he directed her down on top of a crate near their feet. He sat next to her.

He gently pushed her hand away with his, and replaced her hand with his on her shoulder. He brought the other hand up and put it on the back of her shoulder and began applying gentle pressure with both hands, moving his fingers in a massaging motion.

"Relax!" Carter hummed, noticing that she was still tense.

"Relaxing is for housewives, not soldiers. I don't have time to relax!" Kat grumbled.

"Yes you do," Carter countered, "Stop fighting."

She closed her eyes and breathed deep. The gentle massage was very welcomed, and it started to make her feel better. After a few minutes, she slowly pulled away and looked over to Carter.

"Thank you for helping," she said sincerely.

"Don't tell the others I did that for you. If Jorge expects a shoulder massage, YOU'RE gonna be the one who gives it to him." Carter said with a wicked grin.

Kat threw her head back and laughed, "Only in his dreams!"

**So there it is. Hope ya'll enjoyed it! I enjoyed writing it. And reviews/critiques/ideas/comments/etc would be greatly appreciated. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello all. Sorry for the somewhat lag in updates. I've actually been writing for this story like crazy, but it's stuff that takes place later in the chronological timeline. I considered posting some of the "later" stuff, but I don't want to have a jumpy story or have to post it as a different story, since people have added THIS one to their watch lists. So I forced myself to sit and write the next chronological chapter. I hope ya'll enjoy. As always, reviews feed my creative hunger :-P So feel free to read and review. I also added a little bit with Jorge at the beginning, because he's an awesome character (I might have to simultaneously write a Jorge fic, because he's too badass to not pay tribute to). **

The next night, Kat sat on a chair, looking over stuff on her small data pad (likely stuff she shouldn't be looking at). It seemed like forever passed, and she finally took a break, getting up and walking over to a table where Jorge and Carter were playing poker. Jorge had a considerably larger number of chips in front of him than Carter did, and Carter was visibly flustered- his handsome face turning slightly red under the tan hue of his skin. In the middle of their hand, Carter let out a frustrated sigh before throwing the rest of his chips into the pot.

"UGH! All in. Whatever."

Jorge matched his bet, his face stone-like and expressionless.

"What do ya got?" Jorge said.

"Two pair," Carter said, "Read 'em and weep, big guy."

"Full house," Jorge said, laying his cards down.

"WHAT?" Carter said, jumping up from his seat, "You're cheating! There's no…there's…you're hiding cards!"

Jorge snorted in laughter, looking over himself. He was wearing a sleeveless, tank-top style shirt, making it impossible for him to hide cards.

"Sorry, boss. Beat ya fair 'n square," Jorge said, chuckling.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Oughta throw your big, scary ass in the brig for….SOMETHING," Carter muttered as he stormed out of the room.

Jorge laughed as he began packing up the chips and cards. Kat looked over to Jorge, her face a mixture of amused and yet disapproving.

"How do you always manage it?" Kat asked.

"Dunno. Just always somethin' I was good at. Reading probability for the draw, reading other people…."

"But never being readable yourself," Kat finished, "It's like watching someone play poker with a statue."

"Can't let people know what you're thinking when you're playing poker."

"Or ever," Kat added.

Jorge shrugged but didn't respond to that comment.

That was Carter's problem: sometimes he was too easy to read. He let his opinions be known: giving you a stern stare if he was angry, a frown and an red face when he was flustered, or a weary, beaten-down look when he was feeling down.

"Is it even fun, just sweeping everyone under the table like that?" Kat joked after a moment of silence.

"Cards are always fun," Jorge said, smiling.

Kat simply smiled, patted Jorge on the back and walked out to follow Carter. He was walking into his tent, and Kat thought she would sneak up behind him. She stealthily stalked towards him, quickly but silently like a leopard. Suddenly she, much like a leopard, jumped high into the air and landed on Carter's back with a playful "AHHHH!"

However, Carter became horribly startled and, flushed with battle instincts, threw Kat over his shoulders, slamming her onto the ground.

"JESUS, KAT?" Carter yelled when he saw who he had dropped.

Kat wasn't hurt, however, and simply started laughing hysterically.

"Yeah, everyone's getting the drop on me, it seems," Carter muttered miserably as he stepped in front of Kat and helped her to her feet.

"What's wrong, Commander?" Kat asked as she followed him into the tent.

Carter took a seat on a cot and Kat sat next to him, "Well, I just lost my ass to Jorge, for starters..."

"You know Jorge is an expert cards player. Why even bother?" Kat said.

"I dunno," Carter replied, "Just going crazy being stuck here. And the Covvie's being on reach has just got be bugged," Carter admitted, "This planet cannot fall. It just can't."

Kat nodded in agreement, "The fleet seems small, compared to other Covenant invasions. Does command think they're waiting for something? Holding back, perhaps?" She asked, trying to sound casual.

Carter looked over a Kat, somewhat sternly, "Kat, you know I can't tell you what Command's thinking, not until we get a solid piece of information. I'm not going to spread around conjecture and get everyone worried. You're too curious for your own good, Kat."

"It goes with the name," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, but there's a whole other sinister part of that phrase you should be concerning yourself with," Carter warned, "Just at least TRY to somewhat stay out of Command's files, lest you be thrown into the brig- or worse- for 'treason' or some other Cole protocol bullshit. You don't need them confusing your insatiable but harmless curiosity with actual Covennant spying."

"I will try, Commander," Kat replied.

"Will you? I'm serious, Kat. You need to keep your head down from the higher-up's lines of fire. I can't do all of this without you." He blurted out.

Kat looked over at him, intrigued. She was curious as to what he meant.

"Uhm….well, I mean," Carter stammered slightly, his face turning the scarlet color it was earlier while he was playing cards with Jorge. He was feeling the burning intensity of Kat's curious stare, and bumbled on, "I don't need another loss, especially you." Suddenly he looked like he was stung by lighting, "Because," he added, "You're the best L.C. someone could have. Who could even take your place?" he said, with a smirk- clearly trying to joke his way out of his uncomfortable situation, "Maybe Emile? Treating every mission with the stealth and delicacy of a proverbial bull in a china shop? Or Jorge, who can barely fit himself and his gun through a door?"

He then kind of nervously chuckled and shrugged.

Kat then suddenly leaned towards him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Carter put his hand up to where she had just kissed, and felt his skin burning hot as if on fire. His watery, icy blue eyes widened and brightened, as he looked over to Kat. She simply smiled mischievously and got up, walking towards the entrance of the tent. Before she left the tent, she looked back and smiled again.

"Don't worry, commander. I'm not gonna leave you. Couldn't even if I tried," she promised ambiguously.

Carter couldn't say anything, and he just continued to stare, dumbfounded with his hand on his cheek. Kat giggled a little before finally walking out of the tent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Ooookay folks. Here's another update. Next week is my SPRING BREAK (wooo) so instead of spending time partying in Cancun, I'll probably be updating this story a few times (since I have to work, thus no cool spring break trip for me. Maybe if it's not raining I'll head to Pacific Beach or something). **

**I realized that starting this story after the level "Sword Base" would give me limited chronological time to work with the KatXCarter story, so I'm going back to their beginnings and showing what their lives were like before the fall of Reach. So, in the next few updates, expect some new OC's as I write in the rest of the original Noble team and show how they are all recruited and then lost until we get the Noble Team we know and love today (Carter, Kat, Jun, Emile, Jorge, Six).**

***Please note: This chapter starts off with a non-cannon event. But...deal with it :-P I just wanted to tell a story of something that's not well-covered in Reach's cannon. As always, please Read & Review. **

June 22, 2545- 15 year old Catherine-B320 was impatient. Very impatient. She didn't like being kept out of the loop. She had been sitting around for almost a month now with no firm word of what her next orders were. When asking her superiors directly, no one gave a direct answer and everyone was acting very hushed about it. She had a strange feeling that she was being possibly punished.

About a month prior, she had participated in OPERATION: CARTWHEEL in order to drive off a Covenant force on Coral. A corvette was part of this strike force, and was raining down hell onto all of the Spartans, which caused heavy losses.

On the field, Kat devised and improvised a plan to neutralize the corvette. She recruited three other Spartans, and "borrowed" two gauss hogs and two Spartan lasers. She drove her small firing squad of sorts to an out-of-the-way location in order to take out the Corvette's weaponry in the front. They then used the guns to fire on all four of the Corvette's engines all at once. It was a monumental success, however many Covenant troops then dropped from the Corvette and attacked with an up-scaled fervor. Part of the strike force was several brute chieftans with gravity hammers and Elite zealots. Kat's squad made it back while the troops were scrambling to deal with the heavily armored enemies without their lasers or gauss hogs. They were trying to fire with regular turret hogs, but the Chieftans were smashing the hogs to shreds with their hammers, almost as if for fun.

Kat's team made it back and they were able to dispatch of the Chieftans and Zealots, but not before Kat took a huge hammer swing to the face, busting her helmet and causing a massive scar on the left side of her forehead. Her skull was split from the hammer blow, but she kept fighting until the operation was over and the covenant retreated into their now-busted Corvette and off the planet.

Kat was reamed by one of the commanding officers, but luckily passed out from the blow to her head before she had to listen to too much of his chiding. When she came to in the hospital a week later, no one would say much to her, and it had been like that for two additional weeks.

So she was left to wonder whether or not she was being punished for going against orders. All of the other Spartans were training and working for a huge upcoming OP, but she was continually ordered back to base where she passed the time messing with her armor, tinkering with machines, and firing at the gun range in order to not go insane with boredom.

Kat's impatience had come to a head. And as impatient as she was, she was a doubly brilliant cryptanalyst and hacker. Unwilling to continue to wait around in the dark, Kat began poking around computer terminals until she finally found what she was looking for.

_**Personnel report June 14,2552**: Catherine-B320: Subject disobeyed orders in CARTWHEEL but came up with a brilliant plan on-the-spot in order to neutralize enemy battle ship and save hundreds of lives. Therefore, it is my personal recommendation that she be placed into the NOBLE project program. Though her skills qualify her for leadership position, her age and her behavioral attributes makes me hesitant to assign her as squad leader. I recommend that she takes a supporting leadership role, and is paired with a more traditionally-inclined leader who can balance her often erratic behavior. A259 is a good consideration._

_-Kurt Ambrose_

Kat was surprised, baffled and excited. She was thrilled to be taking on a new assignment. Her fingers began instantly buzzing across the keyboards and modules in order to find out more information about this "NOBLE" project. However, her research was unfortunately interrupted when Lieutenant Commander Ambrose himself, as well as Chief Mendez walked into the barracks. Kat ducked behind a wall and fell onto a cot, before pretending to busy herself with her small data pad.

When the two older men came into view, Kat obediently sprang to her feet at attention.

"Sirs?" she said, saluting them.

"At ease, lieutenant." Mendez said.

Kat put her arms at her side and looked at them intently.

"320, you are being reassigned to a special warfare fire-team, and are hereby promoted to lieutenant commander. You are to follow us into our office to meet your commander and overseeing officer. Let's move."

Kat obediently followed the two men into the command office. Mendez then left and fetched another Spartan. Kat looked up at the young man, intrigued. He was older than her, somewhat substantially. Kat assumed he was from Alpha company. He was slightly taller than Kat, with hair that was buzzed almost all over except a little more on top and with no facial hair. He had almost shockingly electric blue eyes, tanned skin, full lips and a round nose. He had a medium length scar, about three inches on his left cheek, and a smaller one that crossed it in an "x" form. He also had a small scar on the top of his lip on the right side.

Kat, in her sinister humor, almost laughed to herself, because she felt like this couldn't possibly be her commander. His watery-blue eyes and full lips make him seem almost pouty or brooding. He was more suited for a magazine cover than a battle field. However, Kat kept it to herself as they entered the room.

"Catherine, this is Carter. He'll be your commanding officer. Carter, this is Catherine. She'll be you're Lieutenant Commander." Mendez explained.

Carter looked almost disbelievingly. Except for the gnarly and deep battle scar on her forehead, she looked like a kid. She had a somewhat angular and square face, and a severely stern look, but there wasn't any escaping that she was quite young. Unfortunately, it showed on Carter's face.

"There a problem, _commander?" _Kat asked, almost mocking his title.

"Uhm, no, Ma'am," Carter said, not very convincingly.

"You two better start getting warmed up quick, 'cuz you aren't getting anyone else," an unfamiliar voice said as a man walked into the room. He was an older man with a rectangular face, normal crew cut and dress uniforms that indicated he was a Colonel. Kat and Carter quickly snapped into attention and saluted the man in unison.

"Yes, sir." They both said.

"Now. You two have been selected to lead our new team: Noble Team. My name is Colonel Urban Holland, and I'm the C.O of special warfare group three, which your team will be classified under. You belong to me, now. Understand, Noble?"

"Yes, sir" Carter and Kat repeated.

"Now, Noble One, Noble Two? As the leaders, your first task will be choosing the rest of your team. I want a fire team of Six, so pick four more candidates and report them to me when you have chosen. Obviously, I expect a diverse team with an array of skills, because we'll be relying on Noble Team for an array of operations, both Covenant and Insurrectionist. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir" they both said.

"Good." Holland said as he left the room. Ambrose followed and Mendez opened a file of Spartans available for recruitment on one of the data terminals before leaving them alone as well. Carter and Kat looked each other over several times, both were skeptical.

Carter didn't say anything, but turned to the computer terminal. He began looking at candidates, while Kat stood uncomfortably behind him. She wasn't sure to what degree she should offer her input, so she simply let several worthy candidates pass as Carter clicked passed them. However, a few files later, Carter suddenly hit a wrong button, causing the files to vanish from the screen.

"What the..?" he said. He clicked several more buttons, almost at random, but nothing happened.

"Sonofa-!" he growled.

Kat stepped forward, chuckling at his horrifying lack of technological know-how.

"Oh, no. A computer terminal. The Achilles' heel of the mighty commander," Kat joked.

Carter gave her a burning stare, "Sorry, I'm more of an actual fighting soldier, and not some tech junkie."

"Unlike YOU, I'm multi-faceted. Expert cryptanalyst and expert on the field of battle, as well."

"Yeah, tell that to your face," Carter sneered, nodding towards her scar.

Rather than get offended, Kat threw her head back and actually laughed boisterously. Carter looked at her, slightly confused but gave an odd smirk. Kat punched a few buttons and the Spartan files came up again.

Carter took position in front of it again, but this time he also made way for Kat and looked over to her.

"So what do you think, Oh Expert of All things? Any premonitions of who should fill out the rest of this team?" Carter asked.

Kat smiled again and looked over to him, as he was sporting a mischievous grin of his own. Kat would have to assess his skills on the battlefield, but for now she was at least at ease with a Commanding Officer who apparently had the same sinister, somewhat callous and rough-around-the-edges sense of humor that she did.


End file.
